


down to our skeletons

by sevenfoxes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Fantastic Four, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (aka Steve and Johnny are twins), AU, F/M, Other, Twin AU, non-power universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-03-19 15:18:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3614724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfoxes/pseuds/sevenfoxes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was Steve's first, he reminds himself.  His before Johnny’s undertow pulled her in, helped along the way by Steve’s complacency.  Johnny’s like gravity: he grabs hold and drags you down, and Steve has spent the better part of five years trying to pull her back out.  Steve misses her in his life the way she used to be - in his bed, in his heart - but he misses her looking whole and happy even more.</p><p>"We’re not kids anymore, Darcy," Steve says seriously, invoking the type of tone he imagines her father would if he were still around.  Darcy’s eyes drag down to the hand he’s got resting over the gun holstered on his hip.  "This isn’t Johnny taking you out for joy rides in Mr. Johnson’s hotwired Chevy."</p><p>-- </p><p>Darcy grows up with the Rogers twins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. gravity

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off of [this gifset](http://sevensneakyfoxes.tumblr.com/post/110839764654/shieldshock-au-secrets-torn-between-steve) by philyra-dreamhouse, an AU where Steve is an idealistic detective, has a troubled twin, and Darcy is caught between them. I made Johnny Storm Steve's twin for reasons, plus I'm throwing in some Bucky Barnes because yes.
> 
> This will be mostly written in vignettes that will skip around in time. Because teenage Darcy/Rogers Twins/Bucky shenanigans? DOUBLE YES.

Steve finds her exactly where Detective Dugan says she’d be, sitting on one of the awful plastic chairs in the waiting room by the desk clerk, her head tipped back, eyes trained on the ugly, discoloured ceiling.  This isn’t the first time he’s found her here like this.

Her chin dips down, eyes catching his as he steps close enough that her knee knocks against his shin.

"Don’t," Darcy says, holding up a hand.  She looks tired and worn down, but still so beautiful it makes Steve’s teeth ache.  Steve loves his brother despite the shit Johnny has put Steve through, but days like this, days where he has to watch what Johnny’s rollercoaster of self-destruction has done to Darcy, are the days he wants to shove Johnny in a cell and throw away the key.

"You need to stop doing this.  He can’t lean on you every time he decides to fuck up his life.  You don’t deserve to be put through this because Johnny can’t get his shit together."

(She was  _Steve's_ first, he reminds himself.  His before Johnny’s undertow pulled her in, helped along the way by Steve’s complacency.  Johnny’s like gravity: he grabs hold and drags you down, and Steve has spent the better part of five years trying to pull her back out.  Steve misses her in his life the way she used to be - in his bed, in his heart - but he misses her looking whole and happy even more.)

"We’re not kids anymore, Darcy," Steve says seriously, invoking the type of tone he imagines her father would if he were still around.  Darcy’s eyes drag down to the hand he’s got resting over the gun holstered on his hip.  "This isn’t Johnny taking you out for joy rides in Mr. Johnson’s hotwired Chevy."

"Please don’t lecture me, Steve," Darcy says, but her words lack bite.  He knows her well enough to know when she’s exhausted past the point of fighting, which is so rare it makes his heart hurt even more.  "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to be smart."  He reaches down and brushes a lock of hair behind her ear, trying to ignore the way his heart pounds when she seems to move into his touch.  "I love him, but he’s spent the better part of his life aching to put a foot in the grave.  I live every day knowing that it could be the one he gets himself killed with his shit.  What truly scares me is that you’re going to get caught in the crossfire."  Steve stops himself before he continues, before he says, _he’s going to get you killed and kill me in the fucking process._

"I…" she says before screwing her mouth shut, her chest heaving just hard enough that Steve knows she’s trying not to cry.  Dugan had told him that she hadn’t been in the car when Johnny was pulled over, but she had been at the party beforehand.  He’d been to a few of Johnny’s parties before the shattered femur ended his NFL career, and he hates the thought of her there, around those people.  Parasites and vampires, every one of them. 

"Come on, I’m driving you home," Steve says.  She starts to shake her head and opens her mouth to argue, but he cuts her off.  "They’re not letting him out until the morning."

"What?" she asks.  "Why?"

"Because he’s drunk, Darcy.  And still a bit high, and there’s no goddamn way I’m letting him go back home with you like that.  He can sleep it off in his cell and I’ll drive him back to his place when he sobers up."

He holds out a hand.

"Okay," she says quietly, slipping her warm, slim hand into his offered one, letting him pull her to her feet and slip his coat over her shoulders.

She falls asleep in the car beside him on the drive back to her apartment.  He circles the city a half-dozen times, watching her sleep, before he finally puts himself out of his misery and stops in front of her building. 


	2. pigtails

Darcy meets the Rogers twins the year she turns ten.

Daniel Lewis is transferred from the regional Albuquerque office to the Deloitte headquarters in Manhattan just before Darcy’s tenth birthday. The transfer is an order rather than a request, but the hike in pay and change in title is enough that Daniel abandons thoughts of finding another job, packs up his wife and daughter and moves to a relatively affluent neighborhood in Brooklyn. It has a good school for Darcy and relatively low crime for the city, which was a sticking point for Ruth, who only asked for a safe neighbourhood and a somewhat short commute to New York Methodist, where she had mercifully been able to land a spot in their Neurology department.

Daniel isn’t thrilled about being transferred to New York. He'd grown up in Chicago, and part of the reason he and Ruth had moved to New Mexico before having Darcy was to offer her a quieter, safer childhood than either of them had.

A city of concrete isn’t a place to raise a child.

But here he is, back in the heart of a hard city with a surly child and a nervous wife. It’s not all bad news, though. While Daniel hadn’t missed the bustle of Chicago while living in New Mexico, there are benefits to living in a place like New York City. The night they arrive, Daniel takes Darcy down to Times Square on the subway and watches the way her face quietly brightens in the glare of the endless of rows of fantastic lights.

Even with the exciting newness of the city, Darcy takes the move harder than Daniel expects her to. She’s always been an outgoing, bubbly child who makes friends easily, but the move to New York marks a sudden shift in his daughter’s personality. Darcy spends most of her evenings stuck in books and barely speaks unless spoken to. He and Ruth know how painful it had been for Darcy to leave her little group of friends from Albuquerque behind; their old neighbourhood had been full of children who had all attended the same primary school for years together. For Darcy, it had been like leaving family behind.

New York is different. Their neighbours aren’t unfriendly, but everyone seems caught up in their own life, like friendliness is too easily confused with nosiness. A few kids play together outside, biking up and down the relatively quiet street their house is on, but it’s not like back home, and Daniel can feel how the foreignness of it all is beginning to take its toll on Darcy.

Ruth worries endlessly about it, too. A month in, Darcy’s teacher at Poly Prep calls them to schedule a parent-teacher conference after Darcy comes home with a few bruises. Mrs. Boudreau spends a lot of time talking to them about Darcy’s lack of acclimation to the classroom, telling them that she’s not connecting with the other children and often challenges authority. The teacher is perfectly kind, but it’s clear that she thinks Darcy is having adjustment issues and softly recommends that Darcy see one of the school therapists.

Ruth cries quietly about it on the ride home. He knows Ruth blames herself endlessly for any of Darcy’s troubles, particularly her loneliness. They’d always wanted to give Darcy a sibling, but God’s plan for them had been one child. Even though they’ve talked about it endlessly, he knows she still silently blames herself for a shortcoming that exists only in her mind. One has always been enough for Daniel. _Darcy_ has always been enough for Daniel.

Darcy fades through the winter, growing more quiet and withdrawn, but in the spring, hope begins to bloom along with the red maples that line their street. She starts spending more time at one of the houses down the street. Ruth tells him in passing that one of the boys in the neighbourhood invited her over, and that she knows the mother from the hospital. Darcy comes back each time looking happier than she has in months, and by the time the last of snow melts off the sidewalk, Darcy is starting to resemble the girl he remembers.

He hears her chattering to her mother one night, telling a story about someone named Steven in an animated, happy voice. Other names slowly wind their way into the house: Johnny, Bucky, a girl at school named Jane. That Darcy has begun making friends again fills Daniel with a sense of relief he can’t even begin to express.

The daffodils Ruth planted in the early winter are blooming by the time he first sees the infamous Rogers boys.

The front door opens and he hears Ruth’s voice from the kitchen yell, “Darcy Lewis, you better not be heading out that door without putting on a jacket. What have I told you about wearing your jacket?”

“Mooooom,” Darcy whines, but obediently reaches for a jacket and tugs it on before stepping across the threshold.

“And back before five! You need to set the table for dinner.”

“Okay,” Darcy answers seconds before the door slams and Ruth yells, “What have I told you about slamming the door?”

Daniel watches Darcy run out of the house through the front window, his daughter taking the steps to the sidewalk three at a time. There’s a group of three boys - two blond and one brunet - waiting for her by the large red maple directly across from their stoop, and he can see the wide smiles on their face when she comes to a screeching halt in front of them.

“You know who they are?” Daniel asks as Ruth rounds the corner, riffling through her purse for her keys. Ruth’s been better at meeting their neighbours and has an infinitely better memory than Daniel has.

“The twins from the end of the street,” Ruth answers, pausing her search through her purse to look out the window. “Sarah Rogers’s boys. The other one is Evelyn’s kid, Bucky.”

They met Evelyn Barnes at temple a few weeks ago. Daniel knew the kid looked familiar; he’d stayed ducked behind his mother as they made pleasantries before the service, peering out from behind her to sneak looks at Darcy, who was busy staring at her new red patent leather shoes and ignoring Evelyn's three year old daughter.

“They good kids?”

Ruth shoots him an exasperated look, ending it with a tired smile. “At this point, does it matter? I’m just glad she’s talking again.”

Daniel smiles as one of the blond twins leans forward and yanks on one of Darcy’s pigtails gently. He can hear her loud shriek through the closed window before she turns tail and bolts down the street, the three boys following in tow.


	3. kansas

Steve wakes up in the early morning, early enough that the city is still pretty dark, at least as dark as it ever gets. In New York City, night never quite feels like night. Working a few months of first watch has taught Steve that it really is the city that never sleeps. Sometimes it feels exhausting, makes Steve long for the quiet summer nights of Kansas. Just a dark, warm sky and the sound of millions of crickets

As kids, he and Johnny used to spend their summers up at Uncle Kenneth's farm, an hour outside Wichita. Without the light pollution, the black canvas of sky had been lit up by a million pinpricks. In New York, he’s only ever seen a handful of stars that manage to burn their way through the smog and light that bleeds up ground below.

Uncle Ken and Aunt Fiona grew wheat, but they’d had a couple horses and goats for their kids, and the farm was on the edge of El Dorado State Park, which meant that Steve, Johnny and their cousins would go camping a few times each summer, catching walleye and swimming in the rivers. He’d always hated going home at the end of August, the long drive back to the East Coast like torture as he returned to school and a city missing a real sky.

The earliest years had been the best. The summers after he turned eleven hadn’t been quite as much fun, mostly because they'd have to leave both Darcy and Bucky behind for six weeks, which seemed like forever at that age. They’d write letters - Darcy more frequently than Bucky, whose handwriting was barely legible anyway - and in later years, after Uncle Ken signed up for a long distance plan, made a few phone calls. The older the twins got, the harder it became to leave them behind; Bucky had always been family, and Steve’s feelings for Darcy, despite his brother’s disapproval, were growing hard to ignore. Besides, feelings or not, Darcy had quickly become family, too.

The worst was when they'd come back from Kansas the summer he'd turned sixteen to find that Bucky and Darcy had begun dating in late July. It’d been like a sucker punch to the jaw, watching Darcy step out of Bucky’s arms as she saw their car pull up the street, jogging toward Steve’s house. Even years and years later, he can still remember her leaning up to hug him and smelling of the light scent of Bucky’s body spray, how it felt to catch sight of a small hickey on the delicate skin between neck and shoulder that she’d tried to cover up and failed.

But now… now Darcy’s in his bed. Now, when Steve leans over and tucks his arms around her, rolling his body into hers, she smells like nothing but his sheets, like sweat and the salty reminder of their coupling. They’d had sex before falling asleep, but she must have woken up after, because he can see she’s wearing the NYPD shirt he’d had on before she stripped it off him and bit down on his chest hard enough to leave a mark, now blossoming into a faint bruise.

She only moved in a few weeks ago, but he's already thinking about how much he wants to make this permanent. Wants to see her clothes next to his in the closet always, the empty mugs that she never puts in the dishwasher littered around his apartment, her toothbrush next to his in the Snoopy cup he gave her as a gag gift for her seventeenth birthday.

(The real gift had been the small platinum pendant shaped like an antique key that he had spent nearly six months of pay from his part-time job stacking shelves at _Portello’s_ on. It’s still around her neck now; she barely ever takes it off. Even back then, it had made him feel proprietary in an uncomfortable, but satisfying way.)

Having her here is overwhelming in the best way. They’d been living in each other’s pockets for almost a year before she officially moved it, half his time spent at her tiny apartment in Tribeca after his shifts and the other half in his walk-up in Brooklyn on their mutual days off, but this is different. This is _official_. Official in a way their relationship has never felt. They’ve always been quiet and casual, more falling together than choosing to meet. At least, he thinks, from her perspective.

It also feels like everything’s finally settling after a chaotic year and a half. Darcy’s still working a grunt-level job at the Post, but she’s gotten a couple bylines, and Richie Hess, one of the more veteran reporters on the political beat, has taken her under his wing. Steve made officer, is on a fast track for a promotion to detective-specialist in the next few years, and they’ve finally moved him off first watch, which means he doesn’t spend his days asleep. Though sometimes he does miss waking to the afternoon sun, Darcy climbing on him for a post-work (her), pre-work (him) lay, the few hours made precious by their competing schedules.

(Johnny’s still out west with the Broncos, though there have been rumours about him being traded to Dallas for next season. Steve loves his brother, but his life has been better with Johnny across the country. There are some days, though, that Johnny’s absence feels like an open wound, like a part of Steve has been excised.)

Now that Bucky’s platoon is in Baghdad, Steve's been able to talk with him more regularly on the military vid phones instead of waiting the customary two and a half months for his letters to make their way through the mail. Even though Bucky’s busy telling him that Steve's a fool, to not push things too quickly, that Darcy’s the type of girl that needs time and patience, it’s a comfort to see his face.

He won’t be stateside until the summer, and he expressly forbids Steve from looking at rings until his return. _You’re all fuck and no foreplay, Steve-o. Enjoy living together, for god’s sake._

He does. And tries to remember Bucky’s words, tries to remember that it’s not a race, to stop and enjoy the slower moments with her.

Like now.

“Darcy,” he whispers into her neck as he curls around her, his knees tucking in the little space behind hers until they’re spooned together like commas, hips pressed to ass and thighs rubbing together. The clock over her shoulder glows 5:25; the alarm won’t go off for another twenty minutes, but he doesn’t want to wait. “Darcy.”

Darcy lets out a little moan as she wakes, snuffling forward into the pillow. To say that Darcy Lewis isn’t a morning person is an understatement of the highest order. Surly or childish by whim until she gets coffee into her system, Steve has learned quickly not to mess with her and to always - always - keep Colombian dark roast stocked in the kitchen.

“Noooo,” she whines quietly, reaching back clumsily to paw at his face. Her palm makes a loud noise as it claps against his cheek. “Too early. Sleeeeep.”

Steve laughs, pressing his nose in behind her ear and brushing his mouth against the skin there, which earns him another quiet whine, like she can’t decide whether she’s annoyed, tired or turned on. Her skin smells so good. She washed her hair the night before, and from the smell of it, Steve thinks she might have used his shampoo. The speed at which the thought gets him from interested to rock hard is embarrassing, though it doesn’t stop him from pressing his cock against her ass.

“Sleep,” she says again, a sigh bleeding into heavy breathing that slows into a steady rhythm as her body tries to slip into unconsciousness again. The corner of her mouth pulls up into a lazy smile as he presses against her again, but droops down as she starts to pass out.

He knows it’s a bit greedy, that he should let her sleep the last few minutes before their alarm goes off, to try catch them too given he’s got a twelve hour shift starting in only a few hours, but he can’t help himself. Slowly, his right hand slides from her waist down between her legs.

“Steve?” he hears her ask quietly, slumber still heavy in her voice as he strokes between her legs, bare underneath his t-shirt. She’s not wet, so he starts off rubbing her gently, barely even touching her.

“This okay?” he asks, knowing it is, but wanting to hear it anyway. “Yeah,” is her hoarse reply, her hips jerking a bit, searching out the press of his fingers. “Mmm. Yep.”

Darcy likes it slow and soft to start, then fast and rough to finish; he can read her body like a book, even by touch, and when her thighs start to shake a bit and he can feel her wetness making his fingertips glide over her cunt, he knows she’s getting close. “ _Steve_ ,” she sighs richly, her hand coming back to cradle and stroke the back of his neck, press her thumb up behind his ear the way she knows he loves.

It’s not enough.

Steve leaves wet streaks on her thigh when he grips it with his hand and pulls, lifting his own body up to get out of her way.

“Whaa-” she starts to say, her eyes confused with sleep and arousal when he gets her onto her back, her legs splayed beneath him.

“I love you,” he mouths into her jaw and smiles when her reply is a groggy, hoarse laugh, and her fingers threading through his hair in anticipation. There’s no way she doesn’t know what he’s about to do; he’d go down on her for hours if she’d let him, and she knows it.

He rucks up her shirt ( _his_ shirt) roughly, which gets the loudest moan yet. She’s reached the point where she wants it hard and quick, for him to press her down into the bed and make her come, so he lifts one of her legs over his shoulder, spreads her open with his thumbs and lets his tongue run right over her clit hard enough that she cries out and yanks at his hair.

By the time the alarm goes off, she’s on her second orgasm and begging so loudly Steve’s pretty sure he’s going to get a damn earful from his neighbour.

(He does.)


	4. rumours

The rumours really pick up a few months after Johnny sleeps with Darcy for the first time in the backseat of Mr. Johnson’s new Chevy.

(There’s always been rumours though, the quick whispers of the neighbourhood kids and gossipy women when they see Steve walking Darcy home from school or Johnny taking her down the block to drink a stolen beer behind the community center. When Bucky lets her jump on his back and carries her down the street to the swimming pool, the two of them trailing behind her. Johnny knows what it looks like and just chooses to not give a fuck. He’s never cared what people think or say about him.)

Johnny’s not nervous about sex; he’s seventeen and, since getting his hand under Lorraine Carmichael’s skirt his freshman year in high school, has spent a good chunk of his time getting girls - and himself - off. But this is Darcy, and as much as he tells himself that it isn’t different, it is. It really is.

They’ve been fooling around for weeks before he offers to teach her how to hotwire the classic, newly rebuilt red Chevy that’s been sitting in Johnson’s driveway while the old man’s down in Florida, visiting his son. Johnny knows he’ll catch a million miles of shit from Steve when he finds out; Steve doesn’t approve of anything Johnny does, particularly when it involves Darcy. 

He hotwires it, shows Darcy exactly how to remove the casing on the steering column and connect the starter and power wires to get the car humming. After, Johnny drives it down Flatbush Ave to Marine Park, Darcy pressed up against him on the bench seat, her ankle dangling out the passenger-side window in the dewy night air. He parks it in one of the empty lots near the marshland, nothing but the sound of crickets and croaking bullfrogs. It’s quiet and private enough that when Darcy climbs into his lap and kisses him, he knows he’s not going to stop this time, and says a silent prayer of thanks for the foresight to shove a few condoms in his back pocket before he left the house.

He takes it slow, slower than he ever has before, careful not to be selfish. Darcy has never been particularly shy, so it surprises Johnny how nervous she is when he gets her top off and her bra unhooked. Wrapping an arm across her breasts, she blushes just a little like they aren’t the most gorgeous pair Johnny’s ever seen. There’s a soft noise of protest when he grasps her arm and moves it, the blush spreading down her neck when he doesn’t do much more than stare, frozen. She laughs awkwardly when he tells her how beautiful she is, like she doesn’t believe it, so he brushes his lips over her collarbone and moves, tugging her toward the back of the car.

In the backseat, he spends a lot of time kissing her breasts, licking at her rosy pink nipples until she’s squirming, the nervousness replaced with need, her hips starting to press up into his, searching for friction. Reaching for his belt, she smiles up at him, her face filled with a loose happiness that claws its way into his own chest, makes him feel lighter than he’s felt in years. It’s never been like this with any of the girls he’s had before. He wants to make this special for her, make her feel incredible, make her world dim down to him and the things he can do for her, the way he can make her feel.

The first second he’s inside of her though, he feels like a thief. Undeserving of this entirely. But then she whispers, _Johnny_ , her fingertips pressed against his ribs, tiny pinpricks of pressure like constellations against his skin. It isn’t the first time Johnny’s been with a virgin, so he’s desperately thankful that Darcy doesn’t seem to suffer much discomfort as he settles inside of her, just a few pinched expressions before he gets his hands between their bodies and strokes at her until her body loosens and it starts feeling good for her again.

Watching Darcy come for the first time with him inside of her will forever be burned into his memory: the way she looks, the way she smells, the way she sounds as her tongue stumbles on his name as all her breath leaves her body.

Steve doesn’t say a damn thing to Johnny about it when he sneaks back into their bedroom, careful not to lose his grip on the rainspout that’s definitely going to fold under his weight one of these days. Steve doesn’t say anything, but the plain look of utter betrayal is enough for Johnny to realize that Steve knows exactly what they did on their joyride tonight. Enough to make Johnny feel like a piece of shit scraped of a pair of chucks, though it isn’t even close to enough to make him regret what they did.

(The next morning, Johnny pulls the t-shirt he’d discarded before going to bed off the floor and understands why: he fucking reeks of sex and Darcy’s perfume. He takes a twenty minute shower before his mother has a chance to sniff it out over breakfast.)

It took ages for the equilibrium to return after the fallout with Darcy and Bucky, no matter how amicable their break-up had been, no matter how hard she tried to pretend that slipping back to friends with Bucky was something natural for her. He knows that whatever transpired between her and Bucky was far more than the casual relationship that both tried to play it off as, and despite Johnny’s quiet relief at their break-up at the time, he was also viciously angry at Bucky for casting her aside, stupidly selfless reason or not.

Johnny’s always been the best at reading her, at seeing the things that Bucky can’t and that Steve chooses to wilfully ignore. There isn’t a part of him that doesn’t know that what he’s doing is stupid and dangerous for the balance they’ve just gotten back, that doesn’t believe the little voice that lives deep inside his head that whispers quietly to him when he sees the way Darcy’s face lights up around Steve, the look that she never gives him.

A few days later, the fight he knows is coming finally arrives when Bucky gets him alone, Darcy at a softball game in Queens and Steve upstairs, working on an extra credit project for Mr. Willets.

“You’re a piece of shit, you know,” Bucky says, taking a sip of his coke, spread out on their couch. He doesn’t even bother looking away from the television screen.

“Yeah?” 

Johnny likes Bucky plenty; while Bucky’s always been in Steve’s back pocket, Johnny and Bucky have also been friends since before he can remember. Mostly, Johnny likes the protective streak Bucky has for Steve, who doesn’t have enough of a clue to fight back when the dicks from Prospect Park come looking for a brawl. But he isn’t the martyr Buck is either: he’s not going give up Darcy the second he gets a whiff of Steve’s desperate pinning. (Dumbest thing Bucky’s ever done as far as Johnny’s concerned.)

He finally turns to Johnny, his face a strange hurricane of disapproval and anger. Bucky can’t help but fight all of Steve’s battles. “Yeah. Sleeping with Darcy when you know how Steve feels about her? You’re a piece of fucking shit.”

Johnny flips him the bird. “Last time I checked, you were the first to go there, buddy.” He hates himself immediately - not because he’s baiting Bucky, but because he doesn’t speak of Darcy like that, and neither does Bucky. Both while they were dating and after, Bucky hadn’t said a single word about what he got up to with Darcy on their dates. No sly looks, no nudges or winks, no hints about what she wore under her skirts and jeans. He hadn’t known until the night in the car whether or not Darcy had slept with Bucky, and frankly, had been surprised that she hadn’t.

“Don’t fucking talk about her like that,” Bucky barks, offended. When Bucky gets angry, he sets his jaw and slips it to the right. This time, as it slides over, Johnny can almost hear the grind of his teeth. Both their tempers are nasty: Bucky’s is a slow burn while Johnny’s is a lit match to rocket fuel. “I didn’t know how Steve felt. How either of them did.”

All this is starting to get Johnny’s back up. “He had plenty of time to make a move and she sure as hell doesn’t belong to him. I didn’t take a damn thing from Darcy she didn’t want to give.” Bucky’s always had a real self-righteous streak running through him that drives Johnny fucking crazy, the same one his brother has zipping through him, twins in their own right. Saint Steve and Bishop Bucky, here to tell Johnny how he’s sinned this time. “Maybe you oughta stop telling Darcy what she wants. That ain’t your choice, Buck.” 

“She’s already made her choice,” Bucky says. “You’re just too stupid to realize it.”

Johnny feels his face go hot, his finger clench, aching for a fight. He wants to spit all the things that would hurt him most right into Bucky’s face . As good an act as Darcy put on, Bucky’s was twice as flawless. But Bucky’s not nearly as clever as he thinks he is, and there isn’t a molecule in Johnny that believes it didn’t hurt Bucky to give her up. Johnny could hurt him, could get under his skin, but it would come at Darcy’s expense.

So instead, Johnny says, “It’s not my fault you gave her up. You can pretend all you want that you’re pissed on Steve’s behalf, but it’s bullshit, Buck.” 

In the end, it’s just as effective as the cruel words running through Johnny’s head. Bucky looks away, feigning interest in a show on the tv that he clearly doesn’t give a shit about, but his voice betrays his wounds. “Hurt her and I’ll break your fucking hands, Johnny.”

Turns out, that isn’t something Bucky needs to worry about. 

Every other girl he’s slept with has always had expectations. Wanted his time, wanted his attention, wanted him to hold her hand and call her his girlfriend. It’s never been something he’s liked or enjoyed, but when Darcy returns to punching his shoulder and racking out on his couch while they watch shitty reruns of Friends, Johnny can't help but feel sore about it. She doesn’t press him to take her out, to make time for her beyond what naturally falls between them. He finds himself craving it, wanting her attention, wanting her expectations.

(A few weeks later, Abigail Kallemeter asks him if he’d like to come over to her place to work on their biology project, tells him that her parents are staying up in Bedford Hills for the night for some gala. He says yes mostly to get a rise out of Darcy, but it earns him nothing but a quiet smile when he leaves their house, Steve and Bucky playing Nintendo as she highlights something in her 20th century French history textbook. He comes back two hours later a little drunk, frustrated beyond belief because he hadn’t let Abby blow him the way she’d wanted to, only to find Darcy asleep on their couch, her legs sprawled over Bucky’s lap.)

Though she doesn’t sleep with Johnny again after the night in the Chevy, she does let him kiss her, feel her up a bit when they’re in private. They’re making out in her bedroom, her parents over at the Jobanski’s place for euchre night, when he snaps open her jeans and slides his hand inside.

The quick feel he gets of her over her panties lets him know she’s hot and more than a little wet, but she gasps, “No,” and Johnny can’t yank his hand out of her pants fast enough. It clearly shocks her, and she lets out a sharp breath, quickly squeaking, “Sorry, sorry,” while trying to grab on to him as he rocks back from her, giving her space.

Johnny’s never been this mortified; he’s a little hurt, too, but when he tries to get off the bed, Darcy won’t let go of his shirt, clinging on desperately. “Please, please,” she says, her voice small and vulnerable. “I’m sorry. Please don’t go.”

He’d do anything to stop her from sounding like that, so he settles back down on his side, careful not to touch her. Her hand is still clenched in his shirt, the cotton twisted up between her fingers, and she’s breathing heavily, like she’s scared. After a few minutes, he reaches up and rubs at her fingers until she unclenches them, letting go of his shirt as he whispers a promise that he’s not leaving.

“Do you regret it?” Johnny asks once her breathing has calmed, hating how his voice wobbles. “Did you… not like it?”

A look of confusion washes over her face. “Of course not.” Darcy touches his bottom lip with the tip of a finger, but when the silence drags on too long to be comfortable, she says, “Johnny?” 

He flops onto his back beside her. “Yeah?”

She scoots closer, curling herself against him, her chest and hips pressed up against his right side, an arm wrapped around his ribs. The weight of her feels perfect against him, the warm, soft slope of her body falling perfectly in line with his. “I don’t regret it at all. I wanted you. Of course it was good,” she says. “You made it so good, Johnny.”

Darcy kisses him so tenderly that for a moment he wants desperately to believe her, to silence the chorus of doubts in the back of his head that haunt him every time she touches him. They make out for a while, the sort of lazy kissing he rarely indulges in, too eager to push past it into pleasure. She hums softly into his mouth as her eyes droop, the telltale sign she’s about to fall asleep, so he kisses her a few more times, then tucks her into his side, letting his mouth rest against the soft skin of her forehead.

“I knew you’d take care of me,” she mumbles into his shirt as she drifts off, barely loud enough for him to hear it, but he does. He does. The words slide around inside of him, warm and frightening and beautiful.

So when Steve comes home three months later, sneaking in through their window and smelling the same way Johnny imagines he did doing the same, he tries to pretend it doesn’t rip his heart right out of his fucking chest.

Johnny’s never been the academically gifted one in the family - you need a brainer, you go to Steve, who took after Mom - but he’s not stupid either. He’s also not too proud to admit what he’d known right from the start: Bucky was right.

It sucks to want the girl who’s desperately in love with your brother. To be owned, but to not belong.

 

\----

 

They walk Darcy back past the 7-11 so she can buy a slushie, half of which she has already plowed through by the time they reach Shore and 79th. They’ve been making more of an effort to get Darcy out and away from her house now that Mrs. Lewis has been released from the hospital. The chemo has taken its toll, and the house is filled with the sound of retching and quiet moans of pain. Darcy smiles a lot less, but she’s different when they get her out of the house. Mr. Lewis, completely unaware of exactly what Darcy’s been up to with Steve and Johnny, has even let her stay over at their place as long as Mom is around. They camp out in the living room in sleeping bags, watching the terrible horror movies that neither he nor Steve can stand, but that she adores.

She cracks a small smile at Johnny, her mouth stained blue from the dye, and Johnny wants to lean over and kiss her, see what the colour tastes like on her skin. But Steve’s got an arm thrown over her shoulder, more friendly than anything else, so Johnny sticks to dribbling the basketball in his hands, pausing every few steps to let it spin on his finger in front of her, baiting her to steal it before ducking away to her annoyed whine.

They’re making their way past Fort Hamilton when a few guys come tumbling out from the courtyard around back, cigarettes dangling from their fingers as they laugh and howl at each other. They move like a pack of wolves, a frenetic energy that Johnny doesn’t like.

Darcy and Bucky don’t know Victor all that well: they go to Poly Prep, while Steve and Johnny attend Fort Hamilton with Victor. But Johnny knows him well enough to hate his fucking guts. He’s a piece of shit with a mouth to match his oversized ego, and the guys he rolls with are bad enough that even Johnny wouldn’t be caught dead associating with them. They spend their afternoons catcalling women and shoplifting down on 5th, beating up the kids unlucky enough to cross their path.

The second Victor’s eyes land on Darcy, Johnny immediately feels his hackles rise. Bucky, Steve, and even Darcy get tense beside him and pick up the pace, trying to make it past the stairs before the group climbs down them.

One of them mumbles to another, something said low enough that Johnny can’t hear it, but the cruel laughter it provokes makes his knuckles go white around the ball.

“Which one you gonna fuck today, sweetheart?” Victor says, blowing a kiss to Darcy before humping his hips toward her obscenely, laughing at the terrible, horrified look on her face.

Later, Johnny doesn’t remember dropping the ball. He doesn’t remember how he closes the space between them. He only remembers the pain of bone hitting bone, the sound the impact makes, the way his knees ache as they follow Victor’s body to the ground, pinning him down so Johnny can pummel his fucking face in. After the third punch, Johnny can feel wetness on his knuckles. He’s not sure if they’ve split or if it’s Victor’s blood on them - or both - but he also doesn’t care. Bringing his arm back again and again, he punches until the pain in his hand quiets to a dull roar, background noise to the pounding of his heart in his ears.

“Johnny!” he can hear Darcy scream, then Bucky growling something at one of Victor’s guys who tries to grab at Johnny to get him off, earning what sound like a punch to the face from Bucky.

But then Bucky’s got an arm around his ribcage, hauling him off Victor. When he finally gets a good enough grip and leverage to pull him off, Johnny grimaces and spits right in the fucker’s face, the saliva landing in the bloody mess of the bridge of his nose. “Talk about her again, you fuck. I dare you, I fucking dare you.”

“Calm down,” Bucky hisses as Johnny tries to fight off his arms. His back is to Bucky’s chest, heaving with the exertion of holding him, and Bucky’s arms have Johnny’s pinned to his side. All Johnny can smell is blood; his right hand is covered in it, his left splattered like an absent-minded painter’s. Victor’s crew is trying to peel his moaning, pathetic body off the ground when Bucky spins him around in the other direction, tightening his grip on Johnny. 

Behind Steve stands Darcy, shaking, her plastic cup cracked open on the concrete, blue slushie sprayed across her tanned legs.


	5. return

The call wakes her up in the middle of the night.

The house is eerily quiet, too many barely-filled rooms connected by long, lifeless hallways. Johnny’s out in California with the rest of the Broncos for their preseason boot camp, so Darcy’s had his place to herself for the better part of three weeks. She’s been stuck on the same page of her novel for nearly that long, and spends the majority of her day huddled on one of the lounge chairs on the patio with a notebook she stares at blankly, desperate for inspiration that refuses to come.

Rolling over, she grasps blindly for her phone, managing to smack her hand into her alarm clock and nearly knock over the lamp she’s already cracked twice because even though she’s been sleeping in this bed for almost two years, her body still hasn’t learned to stop reaching so far.

(Steve’s bedside tables had been farther away because of the way the plugs had been built into the wall.) 

When she sees the name lit up on the screen, she sucks in a breath so sharp it’s painful.

She hasn’t been able to bring herself to change Steve’s contact photo in her phone, so it’s still a shot of the two of them together in Prospect Park, a selfie that she’d forced Steve to take because his arms were longer than hers and she kept cutting off Steve’s forehead in the ones she’d been taking. The shot of them is sweet, her face tucked into Steve’s neck, laughing hysterically as he stares into the camera, a broad smile on his face.

Darcy almost never sees it anymore. Steve stopped calling her after the disaster that was Christmas, and his name flashing bright in the dark of her bedroom is making all her insides seize up in the most painful way imaginable. The hurt feels good sometimes, like a punishment she knows will never end.

(She was fucking callous with something she never deserved in the first place.)

She considers letting it roll to voicemail before unlocking the phone. Steve wouldn’t call unless it was important, and truth be told, she wants to start talking to him again. She’s missed it.

“Hello?”

“Darcy?” Steve asks, and his voice is all wrong. She hasn’t heard him sound this way since -- _fuck_.

(She’d been listening to The Beach Boys on the radio the night her father had died, _But long as there are stars above you, you never need to doubt it_ , softly humming through the speakers when Steve had walked in, his dirty uniform boots leaving tracks on the kitchen floor as he told her. Now, just the sound of Brian Wilson’s voice makes her sick to her stomach.)

“Yeah,” Darcy replies, pushing herself up to rest against the headboard. It’s a rich mahogany, something she helped Johnny pick out the third month she’d been crashing at his place, when she had still been sleeping in the guest room. “Steve, what’s wrong?”

He takes a deep breath, the way he used to when he needed to keep himself from crying. “It’s Bucky.”

And Darcy’s entire world comes crashing down.

\--

There’s a man waiting for her just outside the doors that lead out from the baggage claim. He’s got a piece of paper with DARCY scrawled across it in chicken scratch, but the way he catches her eye lets Darcy know it’s a formality. He knew who he was looking for.

“Hi,” he says, approaching her cautiously. He’s very handsome with a kind smile, and for some reason, even if the badge and gun clipped to his belt weren’t a dead giveaway, she’d make him for a cop in a second. “Darcy, right?”

She nods, suddenly a little self-conscious. After Steve’s call, she spent exactly thirty minutes throwing on clothes and packing a small bag. The following six hours had been spent on planes and in airports, and she feels like death warmed over. Looks it too, probably.

“Sam Wilson,” he says, holding out his hand for her to shake. His face is empathetic, but she doesn’t catch pity. He has a warmth to him that instantly makes Darcy like him, even if she hadn’t spent a good half year listening to Steve’s stories about him.

“Steve’s partner.”

“Mmmhmm,” he says, reaching for her bag and insisting when she tells him that she can carry it. He smiles at her with such kindness in his face that it makes her wonder if Steve’s really told him about her. He's always had a terrible habit at seeing the best in people, even those who have hurt him. Some who don't have good in them to begin with.

Sam makes small talk with her in the car, clearly trying to keep her distracted as they make their way through the hideous New York traffic that Darcy hasn’t missed in the slightest. It feels weird to be back here, in this city. It feels both foreign and familiar. There are too many ghosts here for Darcy to feel comfortable.

Sam drops her off at the front of the building while he goes in search of parking. Darcy heads up to the 8th floor, her heart pounding in her chest. Her mother had been treated at St. Joseph’s and her father had been dead before the ambulance had reached New York-Presbyterian, so her memories of hospitals have never been pleasant. Mostly saying goodbye to people.

The thought of saying that… of _losing_ Bucky, makes her body want to crumble into dust. 

The second she sees Steve, his eyes red and face grim, the last vestiges of control slip and Darcy starts sobbing. Horrible, wet, sobbing gasps of air as she watches Steve’s face drop. He takes a few steps toward her that she echos until her body collides with his and she feels his arms wrap around her. Her own slip around his waist and she clings for dear life and lets the anguish and hurt and poison of the last few years out, the desperate prayers for Bucky needing the space inside of her instead.

Steve’s palm runs up and down her back as she feels herself finally begin to settle.

“I’ll get some coffee and food, okay?” Sam says behind her, surprising her. She hadn’t heard him come up, mostly thanks to her disgusting crying. Her face is still shoved into Steve’s chest, and she can feel the gross wet spot she’s made in his t-shirt.

Steve doesn’t reply, but she can feel the way his body moves as he nods.

She wipes her at her eyes and pulls back to peer up at him. “Is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” Steve says quietly. Darcy finally takes a moment to really look at Steve, who, despite the wretched situation they find themselves in, looks good. He’s put on a little more weight (mostly muscle, it seems) since she last saw him, and he’s less pale. He takes a seat on one of the long rows of worn looking chairs in the waiting room and motions for her to sit next to him.

“What do you know? Has anyone called Rebecca?”

“Rebecca’s flying in from San Francisco. Her husband is in Shanghai, so there’s no one to watch the kids. Her mother-in-law is going to take them, but she’s coming down from Portland, so Becca can’t catch a flight until she gets down to San Fran.” Steve scratches at his chin.

“What about Frank?”

Steve shakes his head. “He’s in a home out near Becca. His alzheimer’s has gotten a lot worse; he doesn’t recognize Bucky, Becca or any of his grandkids anymore. Didn’t Bucky tell you?”

The last time Darcy and Bucky had spoken - nearly three months ago while he’d been stationed near Baghdad again - they’d fought bitterly. He’d told her the truth, bluntly, and she’d hung up on him. “We haven’t talked in a bit.”

The look Steve gives her makes her skin crawl. Darcy doesn’t want to talk about this, doesn’t want to relive her fuck ups and what they’ve cost her. She doesn’t want to think about the last words between her and Bucky being angry and accusatory, that she may never get a chance to take them back. Or to tell that he’d been right.

So instead, she wipes at her eyes again and steels herself. “What happened?”

Steve takes a deep breath. “His convoy got hit by an IED. They didn’t tell Becca much and they haven’t told me anything, but from what I understand, it’s pretty bad. The shrapnel damaged his left side really badly. They took out most of it at the military hospital in Germany, but they’re worried about losing the arm, which is why they brought him here.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

“They don’t know.” Steve sounds absolutely crushed. “He’s got a bad head injury, too. The doctors won’t tell me anything because I’m not family. All I know is what they told Becca.”

“Can we see him?”

“He was already in surgery by the time I got here,” Steve explains. “They’re trying to rebuild the arteries the shrapnel shredded, but--”

Steve’s arm gently slips around her as she starts sobbing again.

\--

“Darcy.”

She doesn’t need to open her eyes to know whose voice that is. Johnny and Steve sound identical to everyone else, especially when they’re angry or sad, but she could be blindfolded and half-deaf and still be able to tell them apart.

There’s a thumb running over her shoulder, and same as the voice, it belongs to Steve. It takes her a moment to realize where she is as she wakes, the smell of the hospital and the rush of white noise. She doesn’t want to open her eyes, doesn’t want to make the last day a reality instead of a shitty nightmare that she can shake off.

“Darcy?” Steve says again, reaching out to touch her hair as she opens her eyes. Darcy’s wrapped herself around him on the small couch. She wipes at her mouth because she’s definitely drooled on his sweater, and Steve smiles as she apologizes.

She whips out her phone for a quick second to check the time. It’s nearly 1am, so she’s been out for an hour or two maybe. She’s also missed six calls from Johnny, has four voicemails from him, and a text message she scans quickly before Steve can read it off the screen.

_on the next flight out. lands at jfk @ 2pm. u ok? let me know if anything changes. xx j_

Steve’s arms drops from where it’s clearly been resting around her for a while based on how warm the skin beneath it is and how cold she suddenly feels when it’s gone. “Hey. Wakey wakey.”

Darcy manages as much of a smile as she can given the circumstances. “He out yet?”

“Yeah. They still won’t tell me much, but they said it went well. They’re keeping him in the medically induced coma for at least the next twenty-four hours though.” He pauses suspiciously, the way he used to before he’d start on some tangent he knew was going to piss her off. “Listen, Sam’s here to take you to my place so you can get some sleep.”

“Steve,” Darcy says sourly, hating being handled even though she’s perfectly aware of how fucking shit she is at taking care of herself, especially when she’s stressed. She’s always been better at taking care of others than herself. “I’m not leaving Bucky here. I’m not leaving you here.”

There’s a softness to Steve’s face now that wasn’t there before, and he nods as he reaches into his pocket for something. When he finds what he’s looking for, he takes her wrist gently and turns her hand over, dropping a set of keys into them.

It’s her set of keys, the one with Yankees bottle opener key chain on it she bought specifically to annoy Steve. The set she left on the counter before she caught her flight out to Denver just over two years ago. The set Steve had picked up immediately after she had put them down and begged her to take, like he knew better than she did that the short trip she was taking to get away from the city wasn’t going to be short at all. That the keys were a promise to come back that they both knew she couldn’t make.

“Darcy,” Steve says, closing her hand around the keys. “You need some proper sleep. They’re not letting anyone see Buck, and I got some sleep before you got to New York. I’m used to working shifts, I’m good for another ten hours at least.” Then, like he can read her mind, he says, “I promise I won’t let him wake up alone.”

\--

It takes another fifteen minutes of fighting and cajoling from Steve for Darcy to let Sam drop her off at Steve’s place in Brooklyn. He parks out front in their unmarked squad car and rolls his shoulders, the bones making an ungodly noise. Sam’s been a constant support to both Steve and Darcy today, and she can only imagine how tired he feels as well.

“Thank you,” she tells him, not sure of the words that can express the kind of gratitude she feels toward Sam, both for his help today and for helping keep Steve safe and sane on the job.

“Of course,” he says softly.

She really wants to step out of his car, up those steps and climb into a bed that isn’t a hospital chair, but she can’t find the strength to even reach for the door handle. This building is like a slap in the face of all the things she fucking gave up. That she gave up on when they fought to keep her.

“Listen,” Sam says, “I know Steve said you can stay here, but I can drive you to a hotel if you want. Or you can come and stay with me and Maria. If you don’t mind being woken up at 6am by a three year old who has a set of lungs that sound like a bullhorn.” His hands are still on the steering wheel, his fingers tapping out a beat, and when Darcy opens her mouth to ask why the hell he’d make an offer to someone he doesn’t know from Adam, he beats her to the punch by saying, “Any friend of Steve is a friend of mine.”

She can really see why Steve loves Sam so much.

“I appreciate that.” Darcy shakes her head. She wants to move, but it’s like her body refuses to listen to her mind. Sam turns off the car when it becomes obvious that Darcy isn’t moving any time soon. 

“I fucked up. He tell you that? I fucked up and I ran and I fucked up some more.” She stares at the worn wood door of what used to be her building. Their building. When she had a life that had made sense instead of what feels like a safe, but stifling purgatory. “Maybe it’s time to stop running.”

“Maybe time to stop fucking up, too?” Sam adds with a kind smile that breaks the tension. He reaches out and lightly punches her shoulder with a loose fist.

If it didn’t feel like her face was going to shatter, Darcy would probably smile too. “Yeah, that too.”

“We all fuck up,” he tells her in a voice that sounds like he has first hand experience in the matter. “It’s whether you make it right or not that counts.”

When she finally cracks open the car door, he hands her a card with the NYPD seal emblazoned on the top. “If you feel like running, give me a call. Honestly, it’s better just to get a drive.”

“I guess Steve’s stories weren’t exaggerations,” Darcy says, trying to find any kind of levity as she closes the door behind her. “You really are a saint.”

“Not according to my wife, let me tell you,” he laughs, waving to her as he pulls away from the curb. “Get some sleep and I’ll drive you over in the morning.”

The third stair on the steps up is still broken, the door still sticks unless you pull it forward as you turn your key. The stairwell up to the second floor has been painted a really lovely pale blue, but it still smells a bit like wet carpet that’s been sprayed with air freshener.

Darcy takes a deep breath as she unlocks and opens the door to Steve’s apartment.

(It’s not hers anymore. Not theirs.)

What she finds makes her ribcage feel like it’s collapsing, falling into itself. Her luggage tumbles to the floor as she shoves the door shut behind her.

He’s barely touched anything since she’s been gone. Half of the stuff still scattered around the apartment belongs to her. When she’d fled to Colorado after her father died, she’d only taken a suitcase of clothes, and though Johnny had arranged for some of her other items to be shipped out to Denver later, she left a lot of stuff behind. Stuff she had assumed Steve had gotten rid of.

He didn’t. That’s her worn rug under the coffee table, her bookcase full of old records and knick knacks from the flea markets she’d drag him to. Her lamp that Steve had flat out _loathed_ because he said it looked like a reject from the disco era.

It’s been two years, and the only differences she can see are that he finally replaced their truly shitty tv set with a decent flat screen and repainted the living room wall that had been stained by water damage the first year they lived together.

She moves slowly through the space, her hand running over the worn couch she’d begged him to get rid of, but that he’d refused to replace. There’s a couple shirts thrown over the back of it, like he’d been in a rush that morning, and she lets her finger tangle in the worn cotton.

There’s a few photos of a blonde woman Darcy doesn’t recognize stuck to the fridge with magnets. Steve is in all of them with her, Sam in some. One has Steve’s arm thrown around her hip in a way that is decidedly more than friendly. Another has Steve, Sam, and this woman in their officer blues. S. CARTER is written over the pocket on her chest.

There’s a photo of her too. Darcy. The one he took of her in the park the same day as the selfie she uses on her phone. She can remember the moment he took it, letting her walking ahead before yelling out her name, making her turn. Catching her off guard. She’s not really smiling, but she looks _happy_. She can’t remember the last time she felt that way.

Darcy walks past the guest room and straight to the door at the end of the hall, pushing it in gently. Steve is pretty tidy, but the bed isn’t made and he’s got some dirty laundry on the floor near the en suite bathroom.

She tugs off her boots and climbs into the bed with sheets that only smell of Steve. She closes her eyes, presses her face into his pillow, and sleeps sounder than she has in longer than she can remember.


	6. decision

The head injury fucked with a good chunk of Bucky’s short term memory; the six weeks before the blast is little more than static in his brain. He can remember the fight with Darcy over the sat phone a couple months before his entourage was hit by the IED, can remember the few recon missions his unit was sent on to Kirkuk and Arbat. The mission that went sideways near Mawat where they lost Jones and Fallsworth. He can remember a lot of blood, a lot of anger. He remembers the nights they’d dig holes in the ground to bunk down, graves to lie in beneath a starry sky.

But he can’t remember the weeks leading up to the explosion, can’t remember the morning of the day, waking up not knowing that his life was going to change in the most profound way.

The physical therapy has restored most of the function of his left arm and leg, though he still has a hell of a time with fine motor skills. Most of the mornings Natasha stays over, she plucks at the buttons on his shirt, even though he’s perfectly capable of doing it himself. The sensation in his fingertips is dulled, and sometimes, when he’s running those fingers over Nat’s spine, he wishes he could feel her with his dominate hand. He misses feeling whole.

But the memories. The memories he doesn’t miss. He doesn’t want to remember the morning he woke up with six men who never saw the end of the day.

Even though it’s been five years now, Darcy doesn’t like to let him spend this particular day of the year alone. And with Natasha in Chicago visiting an aunt and Becca back down in San Francisco after her bi-yearly visits with her kiddos, Bucky is looking forward to a quiet weekend alone with the Yankees game and some thai food from the place around the corner that delivers.

Until Darcy shows up at his door with a pizza from his favourite place (they make their own sauce with san marzano tomatoes - Bucky is a pizza snob) and a pint of neapolitan ice cream.

“Your fridge is a fucking disaster,” Darcy moans, her face screwed up into a disgusted grimace as she leans into the fridge looking for the dipping sauce she left at his place the last time. She picks up an empty container of Chinese, sniffs it and lets out a dramatic retching sound before tossing it into the garbage. “I can’t believe Natasha lets you get away with this shit.”

She’s gotten worse about this in the year since Johnny was released from rehab. While Bucky doesn’t mind the mother henning, broken entirely by Natasha’s no-nonsense approach to his recovery, he sees sublimation a mile away.

Darcy’s guilt could power all of New York City. Though he knows she cares about him, moved back to New York and into his apartment after they finally discharged him from the rehabilitation hospital to help him transition as he continued his physical therapy, this isn’t about him anymore. Not at all.

(He still loves her for it anyway, neurotic cleaning tendencies and all.)

“I don’t know why you care,” Bucky says, leaning against the counter, watching Darcy sort through the ridiculous number of containers of imported condiments that Natasha keeps at his place because she’s a culinary snob who won’t just enjoy his Sriracha sauce. “Oh yeah, Becca made me promise I’d beg you for an advanced copy of your next book the next time I saw you. I think at this point she’d give you her first born. You in the market for a mouthy ten year old?”

Darcy’s face goes a little red, her head ducking back into the fridge. “Still with my editor. I’m not expecting a first printing until the fall at the earliest. Tell her I’ll get her one when I can.” Her first novel had been a surprising success. Not a blockbuster, but Bucky knows she made a good chunk of change selling the film rights to one of the Hollywood studios.

“Hey there, champ,” he says, catching the hot dogs that Darcy tosses over her shoulder toward the garbage. “Watch it, I want to eat those.”

“They’re two months past the expiry date!”

“Aged to perfection then!”

Darcy rolls her eyes as Bucky shoves them back into the fridge and closes the door, herding her away to the other side of the island in his kitchen. “I don’t know how you’re not dead from food poisoning at this point.”

“I’m part cockroach. Can’t kill me.” That gets the first genuine laugh he’s heard out of Darcy in a long while, who stares up at him with tired eyes. She’s looked unwell the past few weeks, exhausted and depressed in turn.

And because Steve is a goddamn coward and Bucky’s always liked poking a bruise, he continues.

“I heard ESPN offered Johnny a job.” Hilariously, in professional athletics, rehab is practically considered a part of retirement; even with Johnny’s arrest record, he’s been fending off jobs the last year. He took a few short term gigs, all based in New York, for reasons apparent to everyone but Darcy. “He moving to Connecticut?”

She shakes her head. “No, the job they’ve offered him is in Los Angeles.” There’s a tense pause before she admits, “He asked me to move out there with him.”

Bucky sees red. “You’re not thinking of saying yes,” he snaps.

The fucking saga of Johnny’s continued interference in Darcy’s life grates on Bucky’s nerves beyond belief. It had taken a car accident and an overdose for Johnny to finally break her, her arm in a sling and a third DUI pointing to a possible prison sentence that was thrown off course by a sympathetic judge who offered leniency. Bucky’s pretty sure Johnny’s successful stint out in that fancy, richboy Utah rehab facility was mostly an effort to get Darcy back, which Bucky had assumed at the time had failed.

Then Steve had mournfully admitted to Bucky that despite that fact that he and Darcy had been casually sleeping together, Steve had begun suspecting that Darcy had a continuing involvement with Johnny. No proof, but he’d been unwilling to push her, to confront her about it. ( _She didn’t make me any promises_ , Steve had told Bucky at the time. _And I didn’t make her any either._ Fucking clueless, the both of them.)

Darcy reaches under her glasses and rubs her eyes roughly. “No, I fucking hate LA,” she says in a tone that makes Bucky doubt her. “I--” Darcy starts before letting out a heavy breath. “Steve. I could never…”

(Despite what Steve thinks, Bucky isn’t sure what to think about the possibility of Johnny worming his way back into her good graces. Darcy had been fragile enough on the other side of Johnny’s spectacular implosion that Steve had treaded carefully, willing to accept a level of casualness unusual for him because he felt it was what Darcy needed. But there’s no way to fake the way Darcy looks at him, like he hangs the fucking moon. But Johnny’s always been a cancer in Steve’s life, and Bucky knows how deep Johnny’s affection runs for Darcy, despite his tendency to make her life crumble, too.)

He knew two years ago what Steve’s recklessness with Darcy would cost the both of them. He’d smelled it all over the two of them the first time they’d come over together to christen his new apartment, Johnny freshly banished to Mormon country and her arm still in that fucking sling even though it had been nearly two and a half months since the accident. Steve had refused to confirm it, but Bucky had sniffed it out through the quick smiles and light tones, the way Darcy moved into Steve’s touch instead of flinching from it.

It hadn’t been sex then. Just healing.

But Bucky fucking knew. There was never _only_ with Steve about Darcy. Just _everything_ , whether Steve wanted to admit it or not.

“You cannot move to Los Angeles,” Bucky says, changing tactics. She’s never responded well to anger. “They don’t even have seasons out there, babe. What the fuck are you going to do without snow?”

Darcy leans against the island, popping her glasses up her nose. “It’s just… he’s barely a year sober. And I _can’t_.” There’s something else there, though. He’s known Darcy most of his life, and she’s always been a shit liar. Terrible at withholding things. So when she shakes her head and says, “I don’t think I could go without seeing your stupid face now that I’ve grown accustomed to it again, anyway,” he knows she’s deflecting.

“What are you afraid of?”

She snorts. “What am I not afraid of?”

His anger rises again; he's so tired of her bullshit sometimes. “You need to stop making choices about your future for other people. You want to move to LA?”

“No,” Darcy says definitively. “I missed New York every fucking day I was in Colorado. I missed you. I missed Steve.”

“Then don’t move.”

“I'm not moving!  But you know it’s more complicated than that.”

Bucky throws his hands up in the air in frustration; the left one tingles as blood fights its way up his arm. “I don’t understand why you continue to throw things away for someone who has cost you _so fucking much_ , Darcy.”

“I’ve cost Steve a lot,” Darcy parries back darkly. He knows what she’s saying. _I am to Steve what Johnny is to me_. And the stupidity of it is sickening.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, “but Steve chose to pay it. You’ve made some bad choices, but you’ve never intentionally hurt him. You’ve also never nearly killed him, so there’s that.” She lets out an angry, impatient breath, which nearly sets him off, because it had been a fucking miracle she walked away from the car Johnny wrapped around a traffic light pole, and she knows it.

It’s quiet for a moment between them. “You’re in love with Steve?”

Darcy nods. “I’ve always been in love with Steve,” she says solemnly, and suddenly Bucky’s so fucking tired he can barely breathe. “But I love Johnny. I care about him.” Her mouth flattens into an unhappy line. “Despite his flaws, despite what he’s cost me. You don’t stop loving someone because it’s difficult.”

Bucky is well aware of how Johnny helped Darcy pick up the pieces of herself when she first went out to Colorado, but it’s been seven long years and an ocean of disappointment between. “You are not responsible for his sobriety. You are not responsible for his happiness.”

Darcy’s biting her bottom lip like she wants to chew right through it. “Can we stop talking about this? I don’t want to fucking fight with you today. I just--” and god, she sounds so, so broken. “I really can’t fight today, okay? I just need the version of you that’s gonna steal all my pepperoni and bitch about the Yankees. I need that, okay?”

Bucky loves her. What had once been a teenage crush, a quiet childish love, has morphed into something more. Familial. She had spent months living out of Steve’s spare bedroom until Bucky had left the hospital, visiting every day, keeping him smiling when he’d wanted to close his eyes and never open them again. Moved into his place so he could leave the hospital without a stranger he couldn’t afford anyway moving in with him as his leg healed up slowly.

It just makes her fucking endlessly bad, self-destructive decisions difficult to watch. But he can give her this tonight. A bit of distraction.

“You don’t even like the pepperoni, so don’t pretend like you care that I steal it,” Bucky says with a sigh, tugging on a loose curl of her hair. She smiles, leaning in when he wraps an arm around her shoulder, bringing her in for a hug. “Just for tonight, hmm?”

Darcy nods, slipping past him to grab a couple plates from the cupboards and napkins from the drawer full of ketchup packets, chopsticks, and disposal utensils from the disgusting amount of take-out he orders.

“You want one?” Bucky reaches into the fridge and grabs a bottle of Corona, snapping the top off on the counter in a move that drives Natasha absolutely insane because it leaves angry little scratches in the marble that he doesn’t give two shits about. He holds the bottle out to her, waiting for her to take it.

Darcy swallows, her voice straining for casual when she says, “No. Just water for me, thanks.” Her eyes shift down to the pizza, throwing open the top of the box and letting the kitchen fill with the smell of delicious melted cheese.

Bucky freezes, surprised. He’s known Darcy to turn down free booze exactly _never_ , and he’d bought the bloody Corona specifically for her because Nat drinks that shitty German imported stuff…

The past few weeks begin to fit together in his mind, a horrifying puzzle completing itself.

 _Oh no._ _No no no no._

“So,” Bucky asks, jaw tense, tapping the edge of his beer bottle against the counter gently, trying to slow the racing of his pulse, “how far along are you?”

Darcy’s face drains of blood, sheet white in a quarter second, and there’s his answer. There’s his fucking answer right there. God _dammit._

He can tell just by looking at her that her heart is pounding hard enough to come right out of her chest, like it’s jammed somewhere up near her throat.

“ _Darcy_ ,” Bucky says, trying to keep his voice steady. “Darcy, oh my god.”

“Three months,” she croaks, her fingers white knuckled as they cling to the bar stool in front of her. “I’m three months along.” He’s glad she’s hanging on to the stool so tightly because it looks like a light breeze could tip her straight over. “Bucky…”

Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever seen Darcy look so frightened before. She looks so fucking terrified that it makes his heart ache.

“Sweetheart,” he says, watching the way her shoulders shake.

Bucky knows.

He knows that if it’s Johnny’s, Steve will stay. Steve would raise Johnny’s fucking kid because that’s just how stupid Steve is for her. And Johnny, a heartbeat fucking sober who’s been using Darcy as his crutch for half her life, dead in love with a woman whose heart he’ll never really have. If it’s Steve’s, it will destroy Johnny.

There’s tears in her eyes, pooling and threatening to tip over her eyelashes. “What’s he going to say?” she asks, her voice hoarse in the way he knows means she’s on the cusp of crying. “Oh god.”

Bucky braces himself.

“Whose is it?”


	7. end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> katertots, for her birthday, requested the scene where darcy tells the father about the baby. (because she HATES ME.) this time it 100% is the absolute end.

She rings his doorbell late on Wednesday afternoon.

Hank starts howling immediately, his deep barking echoing through the half-empty house. “Hank! Shut it!”

Johnny can see Bucky’s car in the driveway, but it’s the top of Darcy’s head he sees through the window in the door, so he doesn’t think twice about throwing it open. Hank comes barrelling out, launching himself straight at Darcy’s legs. Though the crotchety bulldog isn’t particularly fast, he’s got the heft of a very short tank, and she lets out a pained _oompf_ when his head collides with the bone of her calf.

“Get back inside the house, you fucking menace,” Johnny complains without malice, shoving a whining Hank behind his legs by the collar.

"Hey," Johnny says, a bright smile breaking across his face. He’s spent the better part of a week packing up the house, and it’s nice to have a reprieve from the boring task of boxing up the shit he doesn’t particularly care about. The movers will be arriving next week to pack up his shit and ship it down to LA. He’s bought a house in a good part of Brentwood; nothing massive, but a respectable home in a good neighbourhood.

Darcy still hasn’t answered his question about moving down to LA with him. He knows it’s a long shot; he spent a very long time abusing her trust, breaking the part of her that he knows loved him. Despite her continued closeness with Steve, it feels like they’ve been working towards something again, him slowly rebuilding the trust between them, letting her be invested in his success, his sobriety. Showing her that he’s stable, that he’s worthy of her again.

Even if he can’t get her to move with him right away, Johnny knows she’ll grow to love LA. Just a matter of getting her down to visit, reminding her what the west coast sunshine feels like. He has a plan, and for the first time in years, he feels hopeful again.

“Hey,” Darcy says, her hands shifting restlessly. "Can I come in?"

The look on her face makes his smile disappear instantly, worry settling inside of him instead. "Of course, sweetheart," he says, stepping to the side.

As she steps across the threshold, Johnny lets his hand brush against hers.

 

\--

 

"I swear to god," Sam moans, tipping the paper cup nearly inverted to get at the last drops of coffee, “if I could get this shit just tapped right into a vein, I would. I’ve never been so tired in my entire fucking _life_.”

Nick, Sam's three month old son, has been keeping Sam and Maria up most of the night. Katie had been a quiet, unfussy baby according to Sam, so Nick's propensity to be a nighttime shitdisturber has been a shock to Sam and Maria. He's colicky and cranky, and Steve has never seen Sam look as exhausted as he's been over the last two months. “Small price to pay for Nick.”

Sam grimaces. "The sleep deprivation makes it hard to fucking remember that, let me tell you.”

Steve laughs, turning his attention back to saving the report for the Bendini triple homicide; Fury’s had him working mob crime for the past few months and the uptick in activity is making everyone at 1PP very nervous.

“Hey.”

Steve feels his entire mood lift. Given Darcy’s history at the precinct, some of the bad memories this place carries for her, she doesn’t stop by all that often. Sometimes it hurts when he sees Maria stop by to visit Sam with the kids, when Morita’s wife and Dugan’s boyfriend drop off lunches, swing by to return forgotten cell phones.

He turns and can’t help the stupid smile that must be spreading over his face at the sight of her leaning her hip against Rhodey’s desk.

“I need more caffeine to live. Hey Darcy.” Sam gives Darcy a quick hug before he ducks around her, heading toward the small kitchen for more coffee. Sam has made it excruciatingly clear to Steve that neither approves of nor likes the arrangement that Steve and Darcy have, but he’s also very fond of her, and knows when to say his piece and leave it alone.

“Hey,” Steve says, shutting down his computer. Dugan and Morita are bitching over paperwork loudly enough that Steve can hear it across the open space, and someone’s phone is ringing off the hook. It’s chaotic, and Steve can’t wait to be out of here.

“Your shift is up at six right?” she asks.

Steve checks his watch; there’s another twenty minutes until he’s officially free, but he’s not unopposed to playing hooky. “Yep. I was going to go out with the guys, but Sam is going to fall asleep standing up, so I think the plans are on hold until he gets a little shut eye.” He presses a kiss to her temple, breathing in the smell of her. “You want to stay over tonight?”

Darcy’s face is tight when she nods. “I took a cab over. Can I catch a ride?”

“Of course.” Steve frowns. “What’s up?”

She’s looking cagey as hell, and what was at first a pleasant surprise is now setting his nerves on edge. “Can we get out of here?” she asks.

Steve nods, letting his hand slip to the small of her back, guiding her out of the office and to the elevator, taking a moment to wave a goodbye to Sam as they pass him downing coffee with heavy-lidded eyes in the kitchen.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asks during the excruciating elevator ride down to the parking garage. Darcy has an absolutely terrible poker face, and she wears anxiety and fear like a goddamn shroud.

“Nothing,” she lies.

She makes a subtle break for it the moment the elevators open, making a beeline for his car parked in one of the quieter corners of P2. Darcy may be quick, but Steve’s got the longer legs, and it only takes a few seconds to catch up with her.

"Hey hey hey," Steve says, coming to a quick stop, wrapping his fingers around her wrist and tugging her to a stop, too. She doesn’t turn to look at him, so he curves around her instead, coming to stand in front of her. “Come on. What’s going on?”

Whatever it is, there’s a second of hesitation on her face, like she’s not sure she wants to tell him here. But the longer this goes on, the deeper the sinking feeling in Steve’s chest gets, and he’s not sure he can make it back to his place without crashing his goddamn car at this point.

Then she takes a deep breath and exhales, “I’m pregnant.”

Steve isn’t sure if she adds anything after that, his ears too busy filling with the sound of rushing blood, his heart pounding harder than it ever has in his life. It takes him a moment to come back to himself, to remind his lungs to expand and contract.

“Steve?” Darcy’s voice sounds scared.

To be honest, Steve’s not sure how to react. Darcy’s not wearing the look of someone either happy about her situation or happy about divulging it, so the excitement boiling up inside of him feels decidedly inappropriate. Instead, he goes for a neutral, supportive tone when he asks her, “You’re sure?"

Darcy nods. “Four months.” He looks down at her stomach and can’t see much difference at all thanks to the loose blouse she’s wearing.

He doesn’t have to ask her if she’s keeping it; he knows she probably wouldn’t have told him about it if she wasn’t, but he wants her to know that he’s open to discussing it, especially given how trepidatious she had once been about the idea of pregnancy. “And you want to keep it?”

“Yes.”

She doesn’t sound conflicted about it in the slightest, but she’s still hunched in, like she’s hurting.

Back before their lives had derailed so spectacularly, back when he had a ring hidden in a box of his mother’s things in the back of his closet, they’d talked about it. It had been a distant thought; Darcy hadn’t wanted children young, not sure if she wanted them at all, but she knew how he felt about them, how badly he wanted them - still wants them. Though he’s not thrilled about the idea of getting Darcy pregnant out of wedlock (there’s some lessons his Catholic upbringing have instilled in him, and even lapsed as he is, there’s a part of him that imagines Father Malley shaking his goddamn head at Steve’s stupidity), there’s no way she’d think he’d be _upset_ about it. Not enough to cause the kind of anxiety radiating off of her.

_Unless._

Fuck.

The excitement and hope that Steve felt only moments earlier is sucked into a dark place, into the part of him that knew that this was a terrible idea, that it was going to end in pain. They aren’t exclusive, and while Darcy doesn’t talk about the simmering wreckage of her former relationship with Johnny, he knows she’s been a part of his life since his release from rehab. Steve hasn’t pressed her for details, hasn’t made demands of her, afraid to push on something that had seemed so fragile. Hasn’t asked if she’d slept with him, if she was still sleeping with him.

The kid isn’t his.

“Does Johnny know?” Steve asks roughly, trying not to let his messiness explode all over her when she looks like she’s ready to fall apart, too. He’s angry and jealous and fucking _devastated_ , and he wants to slink away and lick his wounds.

Darcy flinches at the mention of Johnny’s name, nodding as she stares at the stained pavement beneath her feet. “I told him. Bucky’s staying with him tonight; I didn’t want him to be alone. He was… angry.”

Steve freezes.

“What?” Steve asks, genuinely confused. His own anger slicks away as he tries to make sense of what she’s saying.

There must be an epiphany on Darcy’s end too because she looks up suddenly, her face open and slightly horrified. “Steve,” she says, sounding a little affronted. “It’s not Johnny’s.”

Steve takes a deep, shaky breath.

“That week in May,” Darcy explains, and Steve blushes a bit, remembering the week of vacation he’d took, the quiet set of plans he’d had to take Darcy upstate that had disappeared the moment she’d set foot in his apartment with a duffle bag. They’d barely left his bed that week, eating take-out for every meal when the low reserves of his fridge ran out, gotten stupid and reckless when his supply of condoms had run out.

Four months ago.

_It’s his._

Steve’s hands are shaking when he reaches for her, yanking her into him so he can wrap himself around her. He tries to be careful with her, but he knows the hug is rough and tight, that he’s holding on to her too hard. “Jesus fucking _Christ_ , Darcy.” His hand fists in the back of her shirt, and pressed up close to her like this, he can feel the rise of her abdomen. It doesn’t feel like much, but it’s there. “Why the fu--” he starts to say before thinking better of it.

It doesn’t matter.

The way she’s shaking against him lets him know even without the wet sound of her voice that she’s crying. “He was so _angry_ , Steve.”

It takes him a long few minutes to find enough breath to say, “It’s okay.”

 

 

\--

\--

\--

 

 

“Hurry up, Rogers!” Darcy yells down the hall. “We’re going to be late.”

Laura’s babbling in Steve’s arms when he finally makes his appearance in the living room, jiggling his daughter. “Whatever. I’ll stick the siren on,” Steve says with a shrug before lifting Laura in the air. Her arms swing as she squeals loudly. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, baby?”

Darcy groans. “No, you won’t.”

“Does mommy know she’s speaking to a _captain_ of the NYPD?” Steve asks Laura in a happy, light voice, taking a moment to slide his eyes over to where she’s standing near the door to the kitchen. Steve had gotten notice of the promotion a few weeks ago, and while he’s not a braggart, being one of the youngest captains in the NYPD is an honour.

Darcy lays a flat, unimpressed look at Steve. “Yes, I do, and I also know I’m speaking to a man who’s going to be sleeping on the couch if I have to listen to Bucky complain at length about how we’re late _again_.”

“Uh oh!” Steve parrots to Laura, who garbles words back at her father that are mostly a mishmash of _Dadadada_ and _Blubbumblub._ Darcy had thought Steve’s honeymoon period with Laura would eventually disappear once the reality of diapers and 2am wake-up calls that needed answering set in, but he’s been ridiculously devoted to her despite Laura Rogers’s temper-tantrum throwing tendencies and late night wailing.

“Steve!” That gets Steve’s attention. “Please put her in her jacket. They already ordered the Chinese, so we need to be there in fifteen.”

Steve scoffs. “Chinese? On Christmas?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, were you planning on cooking the turkey?” Darcy shoves boots onto Laura’s feet as she squirms. “I would also like to remind you that Bucky and Natasha are hosting, and we all came to a consensus after Easter that they weren’t allowed to cook ever again.”

“Point taken,” Steve says as Laura tries to grasp at the ring on his left hand when he sets her down on the dining room table to put her into her jacket and mittens.

Darcy doesn’t miss the way his jaw tenses as he spots the elegantly wrapped gift down the other end of the table.

Even though her birthday isn’t until January, Laura’s present from Johnny arrived at the beginning of the week, the tag under the bow reading _Happy 1st birthday, baby girl! Love Uncle Johnny & Margaret_. Margaret's a high-powered sports agent based in LA, and gauging by the incredibly expensive looking wrapping paper, Darcy wouldn’t be surprised if this gift is more thanks to her than Johnny. Bucky mostly keeps them up to date on Johnny’s life these days, one of the few people from his old life that Johnny will actually speak to anymore, so Darcy chooses to believe Bucky when he tells her that Johnny seems happy, that Margaret, while hard as nails, seems to be good for him.

Johnny hasn’t been back to New York since their falling out, hasn’t met or held his niece. Darcy’s only spoken to Johnny twice since that awful day at his house, both times ending in tears and hurt feelings. Johnny hasn’t spoken to Steve at all, and Darcy is well aware of how much it weighs on Steve even though they’ve never shared a particularly close relationship and considering how long things between them have been broken.

(Johnny mailed her a letter a few months ago, but she hasn’t be able to bring herself to open it. She hasn’t told Steve about it, mostly because she’s not sure if it would do more harm than good. Whatever it says isn’t going to change or fix anything. It’s in her dresser, unopened, hidden between two sweaters that should have been donated to charity years ago. One day she’ll be brave enough to read it. Until then, it can wait.)

Darcy cups the side of Steve’s face with her hand, his eyes sliding shut as he moves into the pressure. “I love you,” he tells her with a smile, a little hurt still lingering behind it, and turns his head to kiss her palm quickly before tucking Laura into her jacket, shoving on her mittens and hat, and hoisting her up against his chest.

“I love you too,” Darcy says, leaning up to kiss the corner of his mouth. Sometimes it frightens her how close she came to missing this, the hurt and pain she’s left in her wake to get to this place.

They’re halfway out the door when Darcy slaps her hand down on her pockets, groaning. “Shit, forgot my keys. Put her in the car, I’ll be right out.”

“Okay,” Steve answers, smiling at Laura’s continued chatter, her gloved hands gesticulating wildly as she grouses about the indignity of wearing mittens.

Darcy finds the keys on the high table in the den, next to the framed photos of Steve’s parents, and the shot of Bucky, Steve, Johnny, and Darcy the summer Darcy turned sixteen. They all have their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders - one of Steve and one of Johnny’s arms tucked around her hips instead - and they’re smiling into the camera. Happy.

Happy together a lifetime ago.

Darcy runs her thumb over the Yankee bottle cap opener before shoving her keys into her pocket.

**Author's Note:**

> So originally this fic was going to be much longer than this (and I had larger chunks plotted out), but I've really run out of steam. So this is the end. I kind of see this as my swan song with writing Darcy as a character. Thank you to everyone who has read and commented on this. It is much appreciated!


End file.
